Davy Jones

Davy Jones, who has died aged 66, was the lead singer of the original “boy
band”, The Monkees, and a heart-throb for millions of teenage girls in the
1960s.

The Monkees were a manufactured band put together in 1965 for a television series as an American alternative to the BeatlesPhoto: GETTY

8:25PM GMT 29 Feb 2012

The group, put together by NBC Television for a children’s “soap”, was the world’s first manufactured pop band and was derided by critics as much as it was adored by its fans. Two members of the band, Mickey Dolenz, the “zany” one with the big smile, and Peter Tork, a “goofy” blond with the floppy hair, could not play their own instruments; only one Monkee, Mike Nesmith, could actually play a guitar. Meanwhile the diminutive, British-born Jones, a former child actor chosen by NBC as the group’s designated pin-up, performed (lip-synched, some claimed) to music played by the cream of Los Angeles session musicians.

In the 1960s their television show, The Monkees, which chronicled the adventures of an imaginary band living in a California beach house, ran for 52 episodes, and the group sold millions of copies of songs such as I’m a Believer, Last Train to Clarksville and (I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone. In 1967, The Monkees outsold both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I’m a Believer even kept both the Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever and the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations off the top of the American charts. They also made a bizarre movie called Head, written by Jack Nicholson.

But when their television show ended The Monkees decided to seize “artistic control” and play their own songs. Dolenz learned to play drums, Jones a bit of guitar. They started to write some of their own material and went on tour in 1967, supported, bizarrely, by Jimi Hendrix, who was booed off stage by teenage girls yelling for Davy Jones (Hendrix finally gestured obscenely and stomped off). But their run in the charts soon ended and, after splitting up in 1968, they disappeared into obscurity.

Three of the band, Jones, Dolenz and Tork, staged various Monkees reunions over the years and in 1997 the band staged a comeback with Nesmith for the first time, releasing a new album and embarking on a tour of British cities. Last year, however, they abruptly pulled the plug on a tour to celebrate The Monkees’ 45th Anniversary. Later “internal group conflicts” were cited for the cancellation.

Jones never seemed to be unduly upset by the band’s failure to return to the big time: “Wherever I go, people still shout out: 'Hey, hey, we’re The Monkees’ And I never tire of that.”

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David Thomas Jones was born in Manchester on December 30 1945. His father was a keen racegoer and took Davy to Manchester racecourse where, because of the boy’s small stature, father and son weighed up the possibility of Davy becoming a jockey.

The pair contacted the Manchester Evening News, which put them in touch with the trainer Basil Foster in Newmarket. By then, Jones had already tried his hand at acting, appearing briefly in an early episode of Coronation Street.

Despite this taste of fame, Davy was far keener to pursue a career in the Turf than on the screen. So when Foster contacted the Jones family and offered Davy a spot at his stables, the teenager leapt at the chance. He spent six weeks at Holland House Stables before leaving school in December 1961, earlier than he should have, so that he could work for Foster as an apprentice.

Soon Jones was “galloping up Warren Hill and loving every minute of it. Being a cocky kid, I even went into the stable lads’ boxing championship.” It was not a good idea: “I got a good walloping.”

Ironically, it was Jones’s spell at Newmarket that secured him his big break in showbusiness when, in early 1962, a theatrical agent who knew Foster came to visit. Foster mentioned that Jones had acted a little, and pointed out that he “spent all day cracking jokes and doing shtick”.

A few days later the agent contacted the yard to tell Foster that a West End production of Oliver! was looking for someone to play the role of the Artful Dodger. According to Jones, Foster insisted he try out for the part. “I just cried. I wanted to be a jockey. But he said 'You’re going. Come back when you’re famous’.”

Oliver! proved an immediate hit and transferred in 1964 from London to New York. There, with the rest of the cast, Jones appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on the same night that the Beatles made their debut appearance. Jones watched the Beatles from the wings of the set, and noted the adulation the band received. “I said to myself, I want a piece of that.”

Following his appearance on Ed Sullivan, Jones was spotted by scouts from the television wing of Columbia Records, who signed him up. The deal led to a couple of appearances in forgettable American soap operas as well as the release of a single.

Jones’s transformation from aspiring jockey to rock and roll superstar was still far from complete. So, along with 436 other struggling hopefuls, he turned out to audition for a pop group to be created for an NBC television show. Steven Stills, later of Crosby, Stills and Nash, was among those rejected, but Jones, along with Dolenz, Tork and Nesmith, was accepted. Rumours that Charles Manson, later to win an altogether grimmer notoriety, was also among those auditioning, have since been denied.

Accusations that the band was phoney and artificial were harder to bat away, however, particularly after Dolenz let it be known that some early Monkees records had been recorded before he was cast to join the band. “The Monkees was not a band,” Dolenz said. “It was this television show about this band that wanted to be the Beatles.” Critics may have branded them the “pre-fab four”, but in capturing the spirit of a nation of popstar wannabes, the television show achieved huge popularity.

Inevitably, The Monkees overshadowed the rest of Jones’s career. But he continued to act, appearing on stage in London in the late 1970s and in episodes of the American television shows The Brady Bunch and My Two Dads. He also returned to productions of Oliver!, though in the role of Fagin.

Nor did he ever lose his passion for the horses. He had an ownership interest in animals on both sides of the Atlantic, and represented a racecourse in Virginia.

Davy Jones, who died suddenly of a heart attack in Florida, where he lived, was married three times and had four daughters.